Midwifery is catching

I haven’t as yet written of the births that I’ve attended, but I want to find my voice for writing them. I need to find a line between not sharing them, and betraying confidences. So I’ll start with my first catch - not the first one I attended, but the first time I found out that midwifery is in a tiny part, catching.

The woman was having her 3 baby after 2 children (so we write that as 3:2) and came in with regular contractions after a day of labouring at home. After a few hours, she got to 4cm and stopped. The contractions continued, but from what I noticed, she didn’t like the midwife attending her and so her labour didn’t progress further. When the midwife left the room to call the obstetrician, I sat with the woman and talked about everything and anything that I could think of. Over the next 20 minutes, during which the other midwife left me alone to supervise while she grabbed a short break, the amazing woman went from 4cm to 9cm in several long, bone rattling contractions, with her groaning and moaning loudly. The obstetrician walked in and thanked the woman for waiting for him to arrive - he hadn’t made it for her last baby!

The ob asked me how many deliveries I had made (his words, not mine) and I said, wide eyed that I had none as yet and he said well this wasn’t going to be my first but that I should glove up and catch. And I did! A few minutes later, a wriggling bundle of girl slipped into the world and into my hands. I held her up, teary eyed and awestruck, while the cord was cut, and then handed her to the other midwife for her minstrations.

And so that was my first catch. I remember that I still had my (STUPIDLY WHITE) uniform on, having not had time to change. I remember the smell of amniotic fluid, and the tears in the vagina because the baby’s hand shot out as she was born. I remember the woman’s vagina stretching and stretching and stretching to birth her babe, and the look of absolute love and almost hero worship on the face of her husband as he watched his wife do the most amazing thing ever.

The only drugs used in the making of this was some nitrous oxide, and local anaesthetic for the suturing. That was it. And so my first "catch" was made.